Psalms 55

Complaint about a Friend's Treachery

¹Give ear to my prayer, O God;

do not hide yourself from my supplication.

²Attend to me, and answer me;

I am troubled in my complaint.

I am distraught

³by the noise of the enemy,

because of the clamor of the wicked.

For they bring trouble upon me,

and in anger they cherish enmity against me.

⁴My heart is in anguish within me,

the terrors of death have fallen upon me.

⁵Fear and trembling come upon me,

and horror overwhelms me.

⁶And I say, “O that I had wings like a dove!

I would fly away and be at rest;

⁷truly, I would flee far away;

I would lodge in the wilderness; Selah

⁸I would hurry to find a shelter for myself

from the raging wind and tempest.”

⁹Confuse, O Lord, confound their speech;

for I see violence and strife in the city.

¹⁰Day and night they go around it

on its walls,

and iniquity and trouble are within it;

¹¹ruin is in its midst;

oppression and fraud

do not depart from its marketplace.

¹²It is not enemies who taunt me—

I could bear that;

it is not adversaries who deal insolently with me—

I could hide from them.

¹³But it is you, my equal,

my companion, my familiar friend,

¹⁴with whom I kept pleasant company;

we walked in the house of God with the throng.

¹⁵Let death come upon them;

let them go down alive to Sheol;

for evil is in their homes and in their hearts.

¹⁶But I call upon God,

and the Lord will save me.

¹⁷Evening and morning and at noon

I utter my complaint and moan,

and he will hear my voice.

¹⁸He will redeem me unharmed

from the battle that I wage,

for many are arrayed against me.

¹⁹God, who is enthroned from of old, Selah

will hear, and will humble them—

because they do not change,

and do not fear God.

²⁰My companion laid hands on a friend

and violated a covenant with me

²¹with speech smoother than butter,

but with a heart set on war;

with words that were softer than oil,

but in fact were drawn swords.

²²Cast your burden on the Lord ,[#55.22 Or]

and he will sustain you;

he will never permit

the righteous to be moved.

²³But you, O God, will cast them down

into the lowest pit;

the bloodthirsty and treacherous

shall not live out half their days.

But I will trust in you.